Thursday, September 25, 2008

Dumb Little Man has a good post about how to interject (more) romance into your relationship. I'll list them briefly, but go read the article. They are as follows.

Eye Gazing

Book a romantic surprise getaway

Touch your partner more often

Play romantic games

Write a love letter

Surprise your partner with a romantic dinner

Spend more time together

I love running across blog posts like these because everybody's got their opinion. For the most part, the "experts" have a formula that works. The problem I have is that Laura & I don't fit the mold. The standard formulas don't apply; they need to be modified.

Eye gazing - Won't work. About once a week I comment to my lover to come sit closer so we can gaze into each others' eyes. She laughs in my face. She may think I'm kidding, but I don't think that matters. She makes comments like, "Why are you staring at me?"

Book a surprise getaway - I don't have a spare $300 minimum that is required for a day or two outside the home. If there are cheaper options, it's rare that she'll consider them. I have no doubt that getting out of the house for an overnight, or longer, would be beneficial to her/us. It would be even more cool if I were to surprise her with all the details taken care of. I won't disregard this one altogether, but for now it's not realistic.

Touch your partner more often - I'm the touchy one in the relationship. I can relate being gently rubbed on my back, or leg, or whatever, to sitting in a hot tub. It's very comforting to me. For me to return the favor gets mixed results. Sometimes she thinks I want have ulterior motives, other times she finds it downright annoying. I tend to shy away from this behavior, and therefore keep my hands to myself, figuratively of course.

Play romantic games - Naughty films don't cut it. We've been there before. I think I've even tried one of those "relationship books" before...

Write a love letter - If I had any decent writing skills, and patience, I might actually try this. Laura loves to write, and is genuinely appreciative of hand-written letters. I consider myself a decent typist; a writer I'm not. Shoot, when was the last time you have read a love letter? Me too. I don't even know what they're supposed to say, or sound like. Maybe the content wouldn't be as important as long as it's stated 'from the heart', and of course, hand-written. I know, I've seen the movies. I love those sappy romantic-comedies, but that's another post. I'll concede that this one may work. Just don't ask me to do it on a regular basis.

Surprise your partner with a romantic dinner - The hard part with this one is more getting the kids out of the house than making the dinner. In addition, Laura often gets stressed out when we're home when the kids are somewhere else. It's the chronic "what needs to be done now? Laundry?" feeling voices she has. I might be able to calm those inner-voices with a little (or a lot) of gin & tonic. Hmm.... Let me think about this one.

Spend more time together - Well, duh! This one is harder than it sounds. With the constant distractions of children, Blackberries®, etc. it's hard to spend time together, other than just next to each other. Now that it's football season, we have a whole hour to sit and chat at the park while the kids practice & play on the structure. She, on the other hand would rather use that time to clean up the house, grocery shop, run any errands that have to be done, etc. I can't really blame her for wanting to get things done so the voices stop (see above). I think this one is the most important, but the hardest to accomplish. Let's face it, it takes a shit-ton of work on both parties' part.

Okay, so after a little reflection on each bullet point, I concede that there are a few I could try. Some are going to be a lot of work, others I'm not even going to attempt. I even chuckle at the thought of a couple. I still think the easiest solution is sexytime. ;) I'd love to hear some of your solutions/ideas...preferably free.

About Me

"AmateurX" originally came from a username I was trying to come up with for a photography forum. I wanted to show that I was an amateur, but I needed some cool, so I added the "X" for that little x-tra cool.